Death’s Servant
This project will probably go through multiple names before I’m done with it. The first name you’ve probably seen it under is Silence is Silver, followed by Silver, then it was unnamed for a period of time. This isn’t really what it initially used to be. Everything has been gutted, flipped upside down, shaken up, and the good bits have been harvested. The setting is different, the cast of characters are different, and the overall goals of this story have completely changed.
First, this was going to be a short story — perhaps 10k words. Then it was going to be a novella. But now I’m committed to making it a novel again. Oh boy.
This is the general idea rattling around in my head (I know this blurb sucks, haha):
Cordelia Morrison is a walking omen of death, unable to emotionally connect to anyone for fear of accidentally killing them via emotional exposure. Her pets were the first to die, followed by her parents, and then she managed to break the cycle by her first set of foster parents. At fourteen, Cordelia is utterly emotionally alone apart from a ghost named Romy. Now, at her third foster home, she’s committed to doing absolutely no harm. Unfortunately for Cordelia, a living boy named Samuel has his eyes set on befriending him. This is all in addition to being marked by Death, but she remains unaware of that.
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Now, I will admit that I ended up killing one of my darlings as I wrote this post. There used to be a character called Fate (a part of the trio Fate, Life, and Death) who was a viewpoint element in trying to navigate the stuff in the world. Xe would have played a large role in trying to help Cordelia confront Death. However, in writing and rewriting this, I realized that xe would have complicated the story too much and was… frankly too powerful. I mean, how hard can things be when you’re a mortal with a literal small deity on your side?
I guess my main goal for this story is for Cordelia to get to the Underworld to confront Death, unlocking her own mysteries on the way and attempting to do absolutely no harm. Initially, I wanted to end this story with her accepting her station — marked by Death to become a Grim Reaper — but that ending feels very… crappy? “Hey, kid, I killed everyone you love, but work for the person responsible for it for the rest of your memory! Congrats!”
In this story, I’ll also be tackling having a non-verbal protagonist. Her primary method of communication is ASL, having been taught it by her father at a young age. Her father’s reason for knowing it is probably the fact that his older brother was Deaf (capital D means culturally deaf). Her being non-verbal is not connected to being marked by Death or anything — it’s just an aspect about her which influences her every day life.
The secondary character, Samuel Kiplinger, is hard of hearing. His parents — who became foster parents after learning about all of the disabled kids trapped in the system — taught him ASL and English, understanding the importance of growing up bilingual and being connected to his culture.
Since this project is so old (now older than some of the kids I watch), there will be a lot of killing my darlings. Although, I really want to keep the aspects of Cordelia being non-verbal and Samuel being hard of hearing. I’ll compromise on a lot for this story, but I’m not willing to compromise on that.
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